Personhood USA bashes pro-life Gardner over flip flop

Personhood USA bashes pro-life Gardner over flip flop

Colorado Sen.-elect Cory Gardner.

DENVER — After reversing his position on personhood last Friday, Republican Cory Gardner is under attack — from both sides.

While Democrats are blasting the congressman for his past support of personhood, which outlaws abortion, and mocking his claims that he didn’t fully understand what it entailed, backers of personhood are also taking aim the GOP U.S. Senate candidate.

Just like Ken Buck, the GOP’s 2010 Senate candidate who first supported personhood only to disavow it later in the campaign, Gardner is suddenly the target of heavy criticism for trying to fool conservatives now that he’s through a primary.

Gardner said Friday that he no longer supports personhood having realized that it wouldn’t just ban abortion without no exceptions but also contraception.

He still opposes abortion.

In 2010, Gardner, during a debate, said that he not only supported personhood but even brought petitions in support of the statewide ballot initiative to his own church.

“Republicans are so thirsty for victory they’re ready to drink saltwater,” personhood activist Ed Hanks of Douglas County wrote on his Facebook page. “Cory Gardner has just renounced the party platform and embraced abortion.

“Why are so many conservatives not fazed by this?”

Republicans chances of winning back a majority in the U.S. Senate may hinge on whether Gardner can take out Udall in a bellwether state where a third of the electorate is unaffiliated and, generally, fiscally conservative and more socially liberal.

It also happens to be a state that’s twice rejected personhood initiatives by overwhelming margins, in 2010 and 2008.

The 2010 amendment lost by a 70-30 percentage point margin as Amendment 62 failed to gain a majority in any Colorado county.